April 2011
abstract
Responsabilité & Environnement
Les installations classées pour la protection de l'environnement
Issue 62
Editorial
By Pierre COUVEINHES
Rédacteur en chef des Annales des Mines
Part 1 — 1810-2010: Two hundred years of inspecting classified installations
The first jurisprudence related to the 1810 decree: Proindustry regulations (1810-1830)
By Thomas Le ROUX
Chargé de recherche au CNRS
The 1810 decree reflected the determination to protect industry rather than the environment. In the first years application, the jurisprudence confirmed this orientation by affirming the “principle of anteriority” and establishing a typology of nuisances weighted in favor of manufacturers. The philosophy of this strongly proindustry decree clearly illustrated what industrialists wanted: “Leave us alone, but do not spare us protection.” Industry was exempted from the penal code; and lawsuits were settled by paying compensatory damages. The initial phase of application of the new decree created a gap between the jurisprudence issued by the Conseils de Salubrité (especially in Paris) and the persons living near manufacturing plants who suffered from nuisances and were ever more dissatisfied.
The 1810 decree: Liberalizing the “things around us”
By Jean-Baptiste FRESSOZ
Post-doctorant, Harvard University
The 1810 decree reflected a determination to boost the industrialization of France. Its regulations were both administrative and “liberal”, a system based on administrative authorizations and the recourse to civil jurisdictions for settling disputes with local residents. One of its (often overlooked) effects was to “liberalize the environment” by granting manufacturers the possibility of paying financial awards for the damages resulting from their activities. The financial nature of the decree’s environmental regulations was not very different from the situation today: nature has a price or has to be assigned one in order to determine an economically “ideal” level of pollution.
Drawing up a nomenclature of classified installations in the 19th century: Pollution as defined by the state
By Geneviève MASSARD-GUILBAUD
Directeur d'études à l'EHESS
Several classifications were used for dangerous, insanitary or substandard installations during the 19th century. The preliminary condition for classifying a plant was usually the filing of a complaint by nearby residents or, at times, an accident. Only toward the end of the century did the situation evolve owing to the influence of both manufacturers, who ever more often requested authorizations on their own, and the first inspectors in charge of controlling classified installations. Nomenclatures at the time — like ours today — reflected not the objective causes of pollution but, instead, the view of contemporaries. To interpret them, we should analyze not the lists of items but the addition or subtraction of items and changes in their ranking in the three classes foreseen in the law.
Legal and technical standards for inspecting installations classified in order to protect the environment
By Pierre LASCOUMES
Directeur de recherche CNRS, Centre d'Etudes européennes, Sciences -Po Paris
Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the measures adopted for classifying installations in order to protect the environment all evince historical continuity. They relied on the principle of authorization. They also exemplify what has characterized most public policies, namely the ongoing tension between preserving the general interest and taking into account private interests. The 1810 decree recognized three principles: defense of the free market, the population’s safety, and the inviolability of private property.
From the explosion at Feyzin in 1966 to the one at AZF in 2001: The emergence of the profession of inspector of classified installations?
By Laure BONNAUD
INRA, RiTME, UR 1323, Ivry-sur-Seine
The catastrophe at Feyzin, near Lyons, in January 1996 led to tightening inspections at classified installations. The work inspectors in charge since 1917 handed this responsibility over to the Service of Industry and Mines. This transfer caused a culture shock in this service, given the shift from inspections centered on mines to the widely diverse inspections necessary for classified installations. New qualifications had to be acquired in industrial technology. A “technician” conception in line with ideas drawn from past experiences in the mines guided the implementation of new inspection procedures. In the late 1990s, the inspection of classified installations became procedural, as clear instructions were given for improving industrial safety and protecting the environment by taking into account the different interests at stake, the prevention of pollution and the reduction of risks.
Industrial overflow at the origin of conflicts related to the environment
By Michel LETTE
Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (CNAM)
“Industrial overflow” refers to whatever flows from a manufacturing plant over into the environment and sets off complaints from neighbors. This recurrent theme in conflicts related to the environment can serve as a guideline for the history of the deeply social process of environmental protest. An environmental conflict is to be seen as an ongoing negotiation about using land between manufacturers and residents with contradictory interests.
Assessing industrial risks: A history of risk analysis since 1970
By Emmanuel MARTINAIS
ENTPE-RIVES, UMR CNRS EVS, Université de Lyon
Risk analysis in industry refers to a set of scientific operations that concentrate on accidents and fit into a rationale of prevention. The deterministic approach that focused on extreme situations and enjoyed favor among public officials has been replaced, since the explosion of AZF’s chemical plant in Toulouse in 2001, with a probabilistic approach preferred by manufacturers. This shift was embodied in an act of 30 July 2003. Risk analysis as a tool of knowledge and power is still at the origin of lawsuits between manufacturers and representatives of the public administration.
Comparing two systems for regulating industrial risks: France and Great Britain
By Jean-Pierre GALLAND
Chercheur au Laboratoire Technique, Territoires et Sociétés (LATTS) du CNRS et de l'Ecole des Ponts ParisTech, Univestités Paris-Est
Great Britain has never had the exact equivalent of French prefects and inspectors of classified installations. Local authorities dealt with issues related to hygiene; and during the 19th century, the central government focused on enforcing regulations about worktime and workplace safety. The Robens reform in 1972 marked the turning point. Not only did it question the prevalent practice of systematically linking workplace safety to public security, it also provided for grouping inspections of all sorts within the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). This agency came to be in charge of a wide range of assignments that, in France, are distributed among several institutions. Its funding is unusual, since manufacturers pay for controls and advice.
Part 2 — Issues related to the inspection of classified installations
A brief presentation of classified installations
By la Direction générale de la Prévention des Risques (MEDDTL)
Article L.511-1 of the French Code of the Environment is now the basic text regulating classified installations, but its origin reaches back to the imperial decree of 15 October 1810 about “dangerous, insanitary and inconvenient establishments”. The latter laid down the concepts still being used: a nomenclature listing the activities related to potential risks (and, therefore, subject to control); a classification of industrial plants as a function of their danger or nuisance; and the prerequisite of authorization. The duty of seeing to it that this legislation is properly applied has been assigned to the Inspection des Installations Classées. It accomplishes its job as an administrative police of not only industrial but also farming installations.
What place for national regulations on classified installations in the European Union?
By Jérôme GOELLNER
Ingénieur général des Mines, chef du service des risques technologiques, Direction générale de la Prévention des Risques, Ministère de l'Ecologie, du Dévdeloppement durable, des Transports et du Logement
EU legislation is now everywhere. Some observers have drawn the conclusion that there is no longer a need for national regulations. The principle of subsidiarity strongly guides the actions of EU lawmakers, even more so in matters related to the environment. The intent is not to regulate the whole environment. Usually, EU legislation is limited to setting general objectives while letting member states define specific measures for achieving them. Far from doing away with the need for national regulations, EU legislation supposes the development of national regulations in many a field.
The viewpoint of elected officials
Ingénieur général des Mines honoraire Maire de la ville de Douai et Président du Conseil Supérieur de la prévention des risques technologiques (CSPRT)
Reconciling citizens with industry
By Maryse ARDITI
Nature Environnement, pilote du pôle « Risques et impacts industriels »
The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio-de-Janeiro laid down the following principle: the best way of handling environmental questions is to involve all citizens at the appropriate level. France Nature Environnement is striving to do this through actions for: making industrial risks better known and reducing their risks and impact; developing a cleaner industry that more economically uses resources; advocating the principle of precaution; and developing mutual respect between experts and environmental organizations. In this context, analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of an industry from the citizen’s viewpoint should be as important as cost-benefit analysis is to manufacturers.
A major reform of regulations concerning classified installations: The recording system
By Henri KALTEMBACHER
Direction générale de la Prévention des Risques Ministère de l'Ecologie, du Développement durable, des Transports et du Logement (MEDDTL)
Ensuing from an order issued on 11 June 2009, a recording system has reintroduced proportionality in handling cases by making up for what was missing under the existing procedures of authorization and declaration. This new system signals a change owing to procedural modifications that maintain the basics of protecting the environment. It is not a regression. On the contrary, it maintains hearings conducted with the public and concerned parties, shortens the time for delivering authorizations, and provides for national recommendations while allowing for local considerations to be taken into account.
Two hundred years later, DREAL is created: A new life for classified installations?
By Philippe LEDENVIC
Directeur région de la Direction régionale de l'Environnement de l'Aménagement et du Logement de Rhône-Alpes
The creation of the Directions Régionales de l’Environnement, de l’Aménagement et du Logement (DREAL), the installation of an Environmental Authority and the thought given to changes in the job of inspection are all evidence of changes in the context of classified installations. The procedures for handling still open cases are yet to be clearly defined, as is the role of public authorities: the central administration, prefectorial services, the Environmental Authority and inspectors. All this represents an opportunity for managing classified installations more rationally and efficiently.